Interviews
By Vijith Assar, Brian T Silak
Sharon Jones may be the reigning matriarch of revivalist funk, but when I first interviewed her a year and a half ago, she was very clear about her role: she's the face and voice of the operation but not the brains. "You gotta ask Bosco that," she'd shrug whenever I tiptoed up to...
Interviews
As I get to know Stephen, I realize that his internal mixing board is always on. His current project involves taking field recordings from...
Interviews
Michael Bongiorno faces unusual challenges as a recording engineer. Rather than working in the cozy confines of a traditional recordi...
Interviews
John Storyk is not just a famous studio designer and architect; he's also a master of...
Interviews
Michael Joly has quickly gained a reputation for ironing the wrinkles out of a...
Who's the producer/engineer with a resume featuring Rosanne Cash, Annie Stela, Van Hunt, Sheryl Crow, Michael Jackson, Madonna, Sierra Swan, Five For Fighting, Lisa Germano, Tom Petty, Traveling Wilburys and ELO? Bill Bottrell is. Matt's interview with Bill is one of the most straight-shooting, no-holds- barred pieces I've seen in a long while. From a kid entering a studio at 14 in a band to a successful career, he's seen it all and has many thoughts about the world of recording. -LC
Count, a member of the dreamy pop band Halou, is becoming well-known for his production, engineering and remix work. A lucky break (right place, right time) and a distinct sense of doing things his own way has led him down a multitude of paths, culminating last year with engineering and mixing duties on DJ Shadow's [Tape Op #11] The Outsider. Count's innate musical direction, drumming skills and band experience have informed his work in many ways, and the variety of work he's completed points at an open mind and a talented individual.
The first time I saw Lincoln Fong's name was in the EP credits for shoegazer escapees Moose back in '91, as the bass player. The next time I saw his name was in '93, in the credits for Moose's second LP, Honey Bee. This time, Lincoln was credited as the engineer and producer. 13 years later, I don't think I have a better made record in my collection. The NME wrote of Honey Bee that, "...the whole record sounds as if it's produced by François Truffaut and not an engineer called Lincoln Fong." It was another ten years before I saw Lincoln's name again, this time in conjunction with my all-time favorite rock 'n' roll hero (and surely the patron saint of home recording), Pete Townshend. These days, Lincoln's day job is in-house engineer and tech at Townshend's studio — he's credited with mixing the DVD that accompanies versions of The Who's new record, Endless Wire. I did some digging and figured out that Fong had engineered a good chunk of the Cocteau Twins' catalog and helped build their studio, September Sound (which, it turns out they had bought from Townshend and he later bought it back from them). I also learned that he played bass on the road with the Jesus and Mary Chain in the mid to late '90s and recorded the Dirty Three's Whatever You Love, You Are. On the side, he has designed and manufactured his own "instrument level checker," the SonicEye (reviewed by Andy Hong in issue #52). Surely I think this guy has some stories to tell.
I'm sure a lot of you were checking out the online rumor mills about the Digidesign's new 003. Many of the rumor mongers claimed that it wouldn't be much more than a re-skinned Digi 002 (Tape Op #33) manufactured for RoHS compliance with fewer hazardous materials. Well, having now used the new 003...
Jim Kalamasz has owned and run Spectrum in Florida for over twenty years. Over a decade ago, they were forced to move to a new location, and Jim documented this process on a home video camera. On this DVD, the main people involved (including Ross Alexander who did the acoustic design) watch the...
When I first read about McDSP's Channel G, I made the mistake of dismissing it as a repackaged application. We already own McDSP's Compressor Bank, Equalizers, and Analog Channel, so I figured Channel G was just those components strung together like the Waves Renaissance Channel is. This is not the...
When Wunder Audio owner and CM7 creator Mike Castoro was asked to describe his mic, he said it was similar to a Neumann U 47 but better. I would agree. The Wunder Audio CM7 is the best vocal mic I've ever sung through in my life. Period. And the "better" part is in the sound, especially at the high...
I love my Alesis Masterlink! It's super convenient to be able to record audio to its built-in hard drive and then burn audio CDs or hi-res CD-R archives. I hate my Masterlink! The user interface is terrible. I feel like I'm back in 1985 trying to program a Yamaha DX7. I use the Masterlink...
From micro-limiting to full-on annihilation, the TG12413 has the controls to finesse the sound as precisely as you can hear it, while your signal runs through a classic circuit which sounds the way people hope for when they use the words "vintage" and "warm". If your music store salesman says,...
I hate dragging a mouse to move an onscreen fader during an automation pass. It just seems obtuse-almost as much as dragging a mouse in a circle to turn a virtual knob. I'll draw out the fader moves as lines on graph-mix by eye-before I'll use a mouse-controlled fader, and I actually prefer drawing...
For this review, I concerned myself with one question. Can three "blindfolded" listeners tell the difference between Mogami and VOVOX XLR cables? Wow-yes. Test methodology is detailed at the end of this review, but in short, the participants' answers matched up across 8/10 tests. Although the...
I love great-sounding speakers. I guess you could call me a monitor guy. Ever since I blew up the studio's last pair of NS-10Ms in 1990, I've been on a quest for the perfect tracking and mixing monitor, one which exhibits the rare balance between musicality and accuracy. It's not an easy thing to...
Let me start out by saying that my experience with small-diaphragm tube condensers has been limited. I've never owned one but had on occasion used the McHugh Military tube pencil that The Hangar owns. John Peluso sent me only a single P28 to audition, so I felt handicapped in not being able to use...
Like the rest of the Portico series, the 5043 two-channel compressor is a half-width, 1RU-height design that can be racked horizontally or vertically. Each channel has the expected controls for attack (20 to 75 ms), release (100 ms to 2.5 s), and ratio (1:1 to limit). Not so common is a button to...
I read the letter in the last issue of Tape Op complaining that the reviews in this magazine tend to skew towards the positive. I gave it some thought, and I consider it a fair observation. I would have loved to give the Roll Music RMS755 Super Stereo Compressor a negative review to conspicuously...
Thrifty New Englander that I am, I often check the daily "Stupid Deal" at musiciansfriend.com. It can be pretty hit-or-miss. Usually, the item is something kind of useless, like an entry-level distortion box for twenty bucks or a ten-pack of odd-gauge guitar strings. But sometimes intriguing things...
In the previous issue, I wrote in my "Gear Geeking" column about selling my Pro Tools HD 2 rig and buying a new 2.66 GHz quad-core Mac Pro, an Apogee Symphony PCIe audio interface card, and one each of Apogee AD-16X and DA-16X converters (A/D and D/A respectively). I already owned an Apogee Rosetta...
Unterberger, who wrote the great books Turn! Turn! Turn!, Eight Miles High, and Unknown Legends of Rock 'n' Roll, tackles the unreleased Beatle media in this 388-page book. Mostly it's a yearly chronicle of what tracks have surfaced (studio, live, etc.), what tracks might exist, and such. Material...